Organizational Forgetting

Abstract

While the creation and transfer of organizational knowledge have been the focus of intensive investigation by management researchers, another aspect of the dynamics of knowledge in organizations-'organizational forgetting'-has received much less attention. This aspect of organizational knowledge is, therefore, much less well understood than knowledge creation and transfer despite some recent encouraging efforts. In this chapter, we explore the notion of organizational forgetting and argue that it is an indispensable complement to theories of organizational learning. In addition, we argue that attempts to manage organizational learning and knowledge must also include efforts to understand and manage forgetting. We conclude with a discussion of an agenda for research on organizational forgetting.